The 27th edition of Maryland Million Day featured an 11-race card, 95 starters and $1,050,000 in purses.
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No runner received a bigger salute than Ben’s Cat, who became the fourth horse to win a Maryland Million race three consecutive years when he zoomed home in the $100,000 Turf Sprint. This was also the 10th Maryland Million win as a trainer for King Leatherbury. Not Abroad brought Petro brothers – trainer Mike and rider Nick – into the winner’s circle after winning the Classic.
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Watching Lucy’s Bob Boy demolish all contemporary state-breds through a five-race winning streak, trainer Sandra Dono decided it was time to take on something more challenging – the 26th West Virginia Breeders Classic. Lucy’s Bob Boy emphatically justified that faith by charging home to an 8-length victory over Russell Road in the $500,000 event. Trainer John Casey’s homebred Down Town Allen, a daughter of Windsor Castle, came home equally impressively in the $250,000 West Virginia Jefferson Security Bank Cavada Breeders Classic.
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The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic fall yearling sale in Timonium produced gains in gross, average, and median as 326 yearlings sold for everything between $1,000 to $300,000. The sales topper was a gray/roan Virginia-bred Malibu Moon filly consigned by Audley Farm Equine, Charlton agent, and purchased by Ellen Charles.
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Two Maryland Million Day winners returned for greater glory. Edwin Merryman’s 3-year-old filly Jazzy Idea followed an Oaks victory to face tough competitors in the $150,000 Laurel Dash, mainly reigning Maryland-bred Horse of the Year Ben’s Cat. But, with her five wins in 2012, turf and dirt versatility, and a Laurel Park course record, Jazzy Idea defeated the champ by three-quarters of a length in 1:07.29, lowering her own 6-furlong mark. Robert Gerczak’s Maryland Million Sprint winner Action Andy battled Il Villano in a nailbiter to take the $350,000 Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash by a nostril. Action Andy became the first Maryland-bred to win the De Francis Dash since Eclipse Award winner Smoke Glacken in 1997.
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Among new regional stallions retired to stud were Redeemed, to Northview Stallion Station in Chesapeake City, Md., and Cal Nation, to Country Life Farm in Bel Air, Md.
Redeemed was the 2011 Virginia-bred Horse of the Year after a 3-year-old season in which he was first or second in all seven starts, four stakes, for Samantha Siegel’s Jay Em Ess Stable. The multiple graded stakes-winning son of Include set a track record when winning Parx Racing’s 11⁄2-mile Greenwood Cup and retired with $832,140 earned in 13 starts.
Cal Nation had an impeccable pedigree, being a son of Distorted Humor out of the sire-producing family of Numbered Account.
